


Fracture

by nyaheato



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: AGAIN LOL sorry, Angst, But also, Fluff, Heaven's Arena Arc (Hunter X Hunter), M/M, Missing Scene, Sleepy Cuddles, Sort Of, Unresolved Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-19 00:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29617941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyaheato/pseuds/nyaheato
Summary: “Is it—Did I break my arm?” Gon asks, blinking, trying to clear his vision.“Yeah,” Killua says slowly, looking like he wants to reach out, unsure. “Radial fracture.”“Oh,” Gon responds. Killua’s eyes are silver by the light of the moon. He looks intangible. “I was trying to hold you.”
Relationships: Gon Freecs & Killua Zoldyck, Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck
Comments: 11
Kudos: 111





	Fracture

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! i dont have much to say for this one! hope you enjoy

Gon opens his eyes, blinking himself awake in the dark room. He watches as Killua’s widen, abashed, before his face quickly smooths back into neutrality. 

Moonlight falls through the window at Gon’s back, lighting up Killua’s temple and jaw and casting triangular shadows over the other half of his face, cheek pressed into the pillow. Gon squints to try and see him better. The room wavers.

“Killua,” Gon murmurs.

“Hm?”

“What are you doing?”

Killua’s mouth twists into a wry smile. “Making sure you don’t die.”

Gon’s face scrunches in drowsy confusion. “‘M fine, though.” In fact, he’s better than fine. His body feels light and floaty for some reason, and the bed is warm and much softer than he’s used to. And there’s also Killua, lying next to him on top of the covers, which is good too. It all adds up to a pleasant sense of closed off comfort and surreality, contained in the dark blue room.

Killua blinks slowly, eyes clear and alert. “You asked me to stay. Don’t you remember?”

“I asked you to…” Gon tries to recall, but his thoughts are blurred and distant and whirl out just out of reach. He manages to grasp flashes of white, of red, of doctors and of Killua, and thrumming underneath it all a vibrant current of pain, but nothing concrete forms in his mind. The last clear memory he has is of fighting Gido, and the thrill of that moment hanging in the air before everything had gone dark.

“Don’t get all constipated,” Killua says, poking Gon between the eyes where his brow furrows, breaking his concentration. “It’s probably all the drugs they gave you.”

“Drugs?” Gon remarks curiously. “Was it bad, then?”

“Was it _bad?”_ Killua’s face sharpens, eyes turning unfocused and far away. He is silent for a moment, the words coming slowly. “Gon, when all those tops hit you at once, it—it sounded like fireworks, and then you just collapsed, and you weren’t moving at all, and I thought…” He swallows with a click. Gon stares, pit opening up in his stomach. 

All at once, Killua’s eyes snap back to Gon’s, and he sees something like panic flash through them before his expression softens and smooths, like he’s erasing the words that had just come out of his mouth.

“Sorry,” Killua says, “I was kidding. It really wasn’t that bad at all. So don’t worry.” The smile he gives is gentle, but it looks off.

“ _I’m_ sorry, Killua,” Gon says, mustering all his sincerity and lucidity, making sure to stare him straight in the eye.

Killua’s brow furrows in confusion. “For what?”

“I’m sorry you had to see that happen to me.”

“Dumbass. I just told you it wasn’t that bad. So it’s fine,” he scoffs, eyes flitting away and then back.

“Killua. I’m not _that_ stupid,” Gon says flatly.

Killua’s gaze darts back to Gon, eyes wide. “I know!” 

They stare at each other for a long moment before Killua ends the contest, looking away. “It was nothing I haven’t seen before, anyway,” he mumbles, but it’s a concession.

“Except it was me, right,” Gon says, and the ugly feeling in his stomach grows. Killua doesn’t respond.

“I wasn’t thinking about you at all, when I was fighting him. Or, I was, maybe, but only ‘cause I wanted to impress you.”

At this, Killua’s cheeks color slightly in the dark, and normally, Gon would feel some sense of giddy satisfaction at that, but he is too busy being remorseful right now to care. Definitely.

“I wasn’t worried about getting hurt. So I didn’t consider that it might hurt you, too, if I did. So, I’m really sorry that you had to see that.”

Killua looks at him with wide eyes. “Gon, you… Wait.” They narrow. “You’re sorry I had to see that? Not sorry that you disobeyed Wing-san and fought before you were ready? Not sorry for intentionally putting yourself in a vulnerable position, where you could’ve _died,_ in a fight you knew you couldn’t win?”

“I had to do it, Killua,” Gon responds, the certainty and truth of it sitting like a stone in his chest. 

_“Why?”_ Killua says harshly. He’s trying to look angry but the crack in his voice gives him away.

“I couldn’t just give up. I had to keep going until I couldn’t anymore. I had to give it my all.”

“And what if you’d had to give your life, huh? Ever thought of that, dumbass?”

“Then I wasn’t good enough,” Gon says matter-of-factly.

Killua glares at him, eyes shining. “Do you—” he growls and then stops, throat working. “Do you ever think that, maybe, people like—like Wing and Zushi give a shit about you outside of themselves? That they care about you because it’s you? Like, do you seriously think that if I had stepped out of the arena to, I don’t know, take a piss at the exact moment Gido beat the shit out of you with his tops that everything would’ve been okay?”

Killua continues to gesticulate wildly even as his voice begins to wobble. “Do you think I would’ve just been like, _oh, Gon got the shit beat out of him and could’ve died? Well, good thing I wasn’t there to see it!”_

“Um,” Gon says. “Maybe a little?”

“Well then, you’re dumber than I thought!” Killua all but screeches.

Killua’s cheeks are red with exertion, his jaw clenched and eyes desperate. Gon knows he isn’t lying, but he also knows that if he slips up even once, if he falters at all, Killua will probably change his mind and leave. Because why wouldn’t he?

Gon smiles placatingly. “I am okay, though. So everything’s fine, right?”

Killua’s glare darkens, then gives way to exasperation with a sigh. “You’re impossible.”

Gon flashes him a grin and watches as Killua’s expression softens into a fond smile. The shadows melt away from his face, dripping off his cheeks and pooling under his head as the moon climbs higher in the sky. Gon feels the sudden desire to capture the image in its perfection and clarity, one of the most transparent and comprehensible iterations of Killua revealed to him yet. Killua is often out of focus, blurred at the edges; it reminds Gon of his rhythm echo. It’s intentional; meant to confuse and deter. But mostly, Gon knows, it’s a way to hide. 

At times, though, Killua stills and his image sharpens, and the walls recede, and Gon feels like he’s cupping a wild bird in his palms. He knows that, sometimes, when other people look at Killua, they see something bad like a weapon or a shadow, and he doesn’t understand how. Distantly, he wonders what Killua sees when he looks at him. 

He looks at his own hand, peeking out from under the covers, his shadow stretching to his fingertips; Killua’s soft, white, open face on the pillow in front of him. 

Without thinking, Gon starts to reach out with his right arm before a bolt of pain shoots up the limb, and he aborts the effort with a hiss. 

Killua’s face immediately creases in concern. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Is it—Did I break my arm?” Gon asks, blinking, trying to clear his vision.

“Yeah,” Killua says slowly, looking like he wants to reach out, unsure. “Radial fracture.”

“Oh,” Gon responds. Killua’s eyes are silver by the light of the moon. He looks intangible. “I was trying to hold you.”

Killua splutters, turning a bright, splotchy red. “Wh—You—Don’t say stuff like that!” he chokes out, and Gon is reassured at this display of awkward embarrassment despite himself. The intangible white disappears, and there’s a person on the bed in front of him instead of a picture or a spirit. The anxiety recedes a little bit.

“Can you come here instead, though? Since my arm isn’t working.” Gon makes his best pleading eyes at Killua, choosing to steamroll over the complaint.

Killua stills, looking somewhat anguished, but complies haltingly, shifting closer to Gon on the bed until they’re practically nose to nose. They aren’t touching.

“Like this?” he asks quietly, averting his eyes from Gon’s steady gaze.

“You’re silly,” Gon says, using his left arm to pull Killua in closer from below, guiding him lower so Gon can prop his chin on top of his head. Careful not to jostle it again, Gon rests his right hand on Killua’s shoulder, unable to extend it further. He’s warm and solid through the fabric of his shirt. Killua is pliant but makes no moves himself, utterly quiet throughout the whole process.

Gon knows he shouldn’t expect so much from him, but Killua’s reticent stillness is beginning to border on unnerving. Anxiety prickles at his fingertips. He tries to ignore it.

“Killua?” he ventures, willing steadiness into his voice. “Are you—“

“Um,” Killua cuts in abruptly, uncertainly. “I don’t know how to—I don’t want to hurt you.” Gon can’t see his face, hidden in his chest below him, arms limp at his sides.

Gon’s brow pinches in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Your ribs.”

“My… Oh.” Another thing he can’t remember. “It’s okay. I can’t feel them at all,” Gon reassures.

It’s quiet for a moment, Killua’s warm breaths puffing softly on Gon’s neck the only sound. Then, Killua drapes an arm gingerly over Gon’s waist, the touch light but there. Gon sighs.

A beat passes before Killua speaks into the warm darkness, words hovering in the air, soft. “What’s gotten into you all of a sudden, anyway?”

“What do you mean?” Gon asks. A cloud passes in front of the moon and he can’t see anymore. He shifts, burying his face in Killua’s hair.

Gon feels Killua shiver lightly against him. “You’re just… You’re so…”

Killua’s hair tickles his nose. A draft curls against his back where Killua isn’t. His arms are as full as they can be but he thinks he can still feel the empty spaces. Gon wouldn’t be surprised if Killua called him clingy; there’s a clock ticking in the back of his mind, most times, running always in the background.

“...I don’t know how to explain it,” Killua finishes. “It’s like I’m seeing you for the first time again.” He pauses abruptly, like he hadn’t expected those words to come out of his mouth. “Um, not in a bad way.” 

Gon doesn’t respond. His brain sort of feels like it’s floating away.

At his silence, Killua curls in on himself somewhat. “Sorry, that was stupid.”

Gon pats him distractedly on the shoulder. “It’s not stupid.” he says. Then, “Killua, I really asked you to stay, earlier?”

Killua is silent for a moment. “Yeah. I guess you wouldn’t remember,” he finally says. “I dropped you off here and was about to leave but you, um. Didn’t want me to for some reason. It’s no big deal.”

“Oh. I wonder why,” Gon murmurs absently.

Killua tenses and it takes Gon a second to realize his mistake.

“Wait—I didn’t mean—” But Killua is already slipping out from under his arm, the limb falling worthlessly against his chest. Gon wants to reach out and pull him back, but the injury renders his arm so useless it may as well have been severed at the joint. And Gon had done this to himself.

“Sorry,” Killua says, sitting up on the bed, head bowed. “You were really out of it earlier. But you’re okay now.”

Killua is moving off the bed and away and Gon doesn’t want him to disappear, doesn’t want to watch the strange white glow of his body diffuse and melt away, gone like it was never there in the first place, like the space Killua had occupied next to him was only liminal, transient, the white like a glint of teeth or sliver of moon, and. Maybe he’s still a little out of it. 

Gon pushes himself up to sitting with his left arm. “Killua,” he says with his chest, the word breaking. 

Killua turns halfway from where he’s standing at the bedside. 

“Do you want to leave?”

Killua looks frozen in place, eyes big and murky. His mouth opens slightly as if to speak, but he doesn’t say anything; just stares. He seems conflicted in a way he shouldn’t be over a situation with such low stakes. 

Then again, Gon considers, it sort of feels like if he doesn’t manage to pull Killua back towards him now, something irreversibly bad will happen.

“I don’t want you to leave.” Gon goes in for the kill.

“But you said…” Killua blinks owlishly at him.

“I was thinking about something else. Not that I wanted you to go. Please stay,” Gon says, trying his best to emanate sincerity. 

“Something else?” Killua questions after a moment, eyebrow quirked skeptically, but he’s already sitting back down on the edge of the bed.

“It’s a secret,” Gon says and smiles at him, lowering his head back to the pillow.

Killua shuffles his way entirely onto the bed, sitting next to Gon with his knees drawn up to his chest. Gon lets his eyes follow a path up the hunched, jagged line of Killua’s back, along the imperfect slope of his shoulders, over his messy hair. Drowsiness that had been slowly creeping up on him crashes over his head like a tidal wave. 

Awkwardly, Gon fumbles for Killua’s right hand with his left, squeezing the warm fingers when he finds them in the dark. “Thank you,” he murmurs, vision hazy as he looks up at Killua, who stares wide-eyed back at him.

“For what?” Killua asks.

“Being here,” Gon hopes he replies before succumbing to fatigue, Killua’s hand in his a point of light in the darkness of sleep that overtakes him.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! pls leave kudos if you enjoyed and tell me what you thought in the comments!!
> 
> also. i’ve never broken a bone & don’t know what it feels like or anything so sorry if this is inaccurate heheh


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